With 9/11 to kick it off and an ugly recession to close it out, Time magazine recently called this the “Decade From Hell.” Despite all this, I just had a Jimmy Stewart Wonderful Life moment today.
I scheduled lunch with Chris, an employee I hired out of college in 1988. He worked for us as a construction manager for 16 years before taking a similar job at Purdue University.
I hadn’t seen Chris since he left, so I was anxious to connect again. After the pleasantries, he shared how in five short years he had become the senior construction manager at this top-30 university. With a sincerity that words just can’t express, he shared how the lessons of honesty, transparency, trust, fairness, and diligence that he learned from our team were the keys to his surprising success.
Yes, this decade has been ugly, but today Chris taught me to look beyond those temporal disappointments to see how God can use each of us to make a permanent difference. If you’re not sure He is, you should watch the old Jimmy Stewart movie again. As you gather with family and friends, it will remind you that we all matter and it truly is a wonderful life.
